Yiannis Isidorou works across photography, video, sound, text, and performance, developing long-term inquiries into memory, disappearance, and the instability of experience. Shaped as much by printed matter and urban drift as by formal training, his practice treats visual material as a field of projection, hesitation, and recurring doubt.

Since the early 2000s, his work has unfolded through artist-run initiatives such as happyfew / dangerfew, womb arts collective, intothepill, and Salon de Vortex. These were working situations that allowed mistakes, delays, and forms of making that did not always resolve into finished outcomes. This commitment to collective and experimental practice continues through FRMK, the poetry–theory journal where he serves as artistic director.

His projects often begin in prolonged acts of accumulation: notebooks, diaries, image sequences, sonic fragments, and urban recordings. Works such as Homo Camcordus and the ongoing research project The Past is Violence examine how documentation gradually slides into narrative, and how memory fragments under the slow pressure of everyday urban life.

He co-founded Butoh Armé, a meditation–noise ensemble exploring ritual, repetition, waiting, and sustained sonic intensity within the city. He teaches visual arts and new media in Athens and collaborates as a scientific associate at the National Technical University of Athens. Across media, his practice persists as a method of staying with uncertainty, allowing the work to remain open, provisional, and occasionally unfinished.

Selected Work

Homo Camcordus (2020)
Theoretical text and 20-minute video-essay (screened at the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival), examining recording, perception, and the collapse between witness and event.

The Past is Violence (ongoing)
Long-term photographic and textual research into memory, disappearance, and the fiction of personal and collective experience.

Butoh Armé (2023–ongoing)
Meditation–noise ensemble with Simon Barker and Yiannis Grigoriadis, focused on ritual, waiting, and sonic intensity within the urban environment.

Experimental Gestures (various)
Short actions, image sequences, and threshold-events developed across photography and video.

Collaborative Works with Yiannis Grigoriadis
The Dialectic of Reconstruction (2013)
Decades (2018)
Origin (2020)
Ökumene (2023)

Selected Exhibitions / Presentations

The Dialectic of Reconstruction, Athens, 2011, 2013
Urbanism for Dummies (curation), CheapArt, Athens, 2013–2014
NICE! Is Return Possible? (curation), Nikaia, 2016
Decades, CheapArt, Athens, 2018
Origin, Potential Project, Athens, 2020
Ökumene, Potential Project, Athens, 2023

TATLIN’S DREAM.
UTOPIAS. THE ETERNAL RETURN.
Athens Conservatory. Art Exhibition & Public Program | September 26 – November 1, 2025

Hounds of Madness, original music composition for the site-specific performance Hounds of Madness (Archaeological Museum of Thebes, August 20–21, 2025), inspired by Euripides’ The Bacchae, with themes of collectivity, ritual, and the self-determination of the female body.

Demolitions, 6th visual arts meeting @+oikismos
The 6th visual arts meeting of +oikismos, entitled “Demolitions” is taking place in the Halandri neighborhood. The meeting includes in situ installations, performances, and interventions by more than 40 artists and theorists, focusing on the concept of demolition as a material, social, political, and psychological process, but also as a potentially transformative process. The event began on June 27 and runs until July 1, with the opening on June 27 at 7 p.m.


BUTOH ARMÉ (YIANNIS GRIGORIADIS, YIANNIS ISIDOROU, SIMON BARKER)
https://aefestival.gr/festival_events/metapoliteysi/
What to waiting for!, 2024, experimental, music performance
Waiting as a process of modern life does not fulfill our expectations. It is an illusion. We wait for something with impatience or hope, and ultimately this waiting leads us to despair in reality.
However, the futility of waiting creates a field of defense between desire and its fulfillment. This field is also the space of possibilities, changes, and revisions of both ourselves and our relationships with the world. In the work What to Expect, through recitations of excerpts from Inger Christensen’s poetic work Det/it (1969), we create sound dialogues moving within the above framework, where waiting is expressed by pauses and the unfulfilled by continuous sound interaction that deliberately eludes a predetermined end.

25.feb.2024 “FRMK” celebrates its 10th anniversary and its 18th issue, “Tenderness – Care – Solidarity”, by returning to ” Romantso” for a modular poetic performance.
“‘Tales Around the Fire’ is composed of poetic texts selected from throughout the magazine’s run:
From Inger Christensen to John Cage, from Cecilia Vicuña to Robert Hass and many others.
Contributing poets:
Katerina Iliopoulou, Panagiotis Ioannidis, Gianna Bukova, Iordanis Papadopoulos, Niki Chalkiadaki, Marios Hatziprokopkopiou,
the actor Yannis Tsoumarakis,
and Phoebe.
*
“Butoh Arme” (Yannis Grigoriadis, Yannis Isidorou, Simon Barker) perform live music.
After the end of the performance, “Butoh Arme” will play
an improvisation session.
*
Conception: Katerina Iliopoulou, Yannis Isidorou
Director, text selection: Katerina Iliopoulou

Βutoh Αrme at Potential project, 02.June.2023/ Was schlimm ist
Butoh Arme are Simon Barker, Yiannis Grigoriadis and Yiannis Isidorou.
In the corners of capitalism they create environments of thought amidst meditative noise, poetry, dream images and playful performance. Their rare live performances remain legendary… Either way, these dudes are addicted to luck, anarchy and mischief.

Ökumene
From the innermost to the endoterra
10 May – 3 June 2023
Yannis Grigoriadis and Yannis Isidorou present their new project Ökumene, a continuation of their previous exhibition Origin that took place at Potential Project in October 2021.

The poetry of the visual artists
January 16. 2023 @Hellenic American Union
see the event on youtube

When our eyes touch
@o.art.ath
8-9&10/dec/2022
Choreography, Interpretation: Maria Koliopoulou
Artistic collaboration: Mariza Vinieratou
Dramaturgy consultant: Bettina Panagiotara
Vocal preparation – Vocal dramaturgy: Anna Pagalou
Sound design: Yiannis Isidorou
Lighting design: Thomas Economakos

Origin
an art exibition by
Yiannis Grigoriadis & Yiannis Isidorou
Opening Thursday, October 15 2020
Duration:15.10 – 21.11.2020
@ Potential Project, Athens

Δecades
an art exibition by
Yiannis Gregoriadis and Yannis Isidorou
Opening: Thursday, April 19, 2018. 20:00
Duration: 19.4 – 5.5.2018
@cheapart exarchia, athens

Instar
12th March 2020,
Choreography: Maria Koliopoulou
Performers: Ioanna Apostolou, Christina Reinhardt
Sound design: Yiannis Isidorou
Costumes: Marios Rammos
Light design: Thomas Economacos
Artistic collaborators: Katerina Liontou, Mariza Vinieratou, Betina Panagiotara

Homo Camcordus  
A political and poetic visual essay about the passion of recording that is central to the way we experience and interpret the contemporary world. The movie is organized around a text as a personal journey of associations through the city and its people highlighting different sides of the recording experience, while denouncing sarcastically what it – at the same time – venerates and is ardently drawn to. [see the film on youtube]
Thessaloniki Documentary Festival

I don’t collect bulk items, 2018
Installation
metal camp bed, action comics, straps/sound work
@The Forttress
18 Jun – 31 Oct 2018
Curated by Theodoros Zafeiropoulos
Fortified Complex of the
Troupakides-Mourtzinoi
Kardamili, Messinia, Greece

T e r r a i n

2-12,june, 2018
Choreography: Maria Koliopoulou
Performers: Ioanna Apostolou, Konstantina Gogoulou, Christina Reinhardt
Sound design / Live Sound Set: Yiannis Isidorou
Costume design: Adonis Volanakis
Light design: Thomas Economacos

 

My Father’s apraxia my mother’s agnosia
installation
TILT PLATFORM 2017
Exhibition Nameless
Duration: 4 – 20 August 2017

a room (of her own) – [action] 34
choreographer:Maria Koliopoulou
Music/Sound designer: Yannis Isidorou
5th Greek Dance Platform, organised by the Greek Choreographers Assotiation,
@ Athens concert hall, 23 October 2016.
Premiered at the Théâtre National Algérien, Algiers 2014.
Invited by the Greek Embassy and with the support of the Onassis Cultural Centre.
TanzKosmos 2014 – KosmosTheater – egal-equal festival, Vienna, November 2014.
Dance days Chania, July 2016

nice!
created by
Yiannis isidorou & Yiannis Grigoriadis
full online on issuu

Salon De Vortex  presents
NICE!
March 16 – April 4 2016
an exhibition and a book
curated and edited by
Yiannis isidorou & Yiannis Grigoriadis

Hilde goes Asger
january 8, 2016What Asger Jorn [un] taught me.
” Theses concerning the movements and modes of the artist
in the symmetrified world of economics, by Yannis Isidorou

curating by Hilde de Bruijn
hosted by Circuits and Currents, the Project Space of the Athens School of Fine Art.
One day of lectures and Q&A in the framework of HILDE GOES AGER,
a curatorial research project into the thinking and writing of the experimental artist Asger Jorn (1914-1973).

“It’s all Greek to me” 
November 26th 2015 – January 9th 2016
Hallway Galleries – Artscape Youngplace
180 Shaw Street, Toronto, Ontario Canada

Vandalism Part 2
Wednesday November 25th, 2015, 8:00 p.m.
Duration: November 25th – December 7th, 2015 CHEAPART
25 A.Metaxa. 106 81 Athens

exulat […poeta in terra…]
09/10/2015 | 20:00
Thessaloniki @Alatza Imaret
50 dimitria
aporia, together with Katerina Iliopoulou
a multimedia, recite/performance

SDV@artAthina 2015 4-7 June 2015
851 athina-nikea
the bus

exhibition blasted
beton 7 may 12th – 23th 2
The end of latent image
.
a path from the expectation as apathy.
the future is already past.
an instalation

015International dance festival “unlimited access”
the flight choreographed by maria koliopoulou
sound design by yiannis isidorou
@onassis cultural centre
feb.27. 2015

Gestus, a book, together with Katerina Iliopoulou
poetry, photography (printed in Athens dec. 2014)

a room (of her own) – [action] 34
prosxima dance company
choreography Maria Koliopoulou
performance Ioanna Paraskevopoulou
sound design & music
27.10.2014

Aporia, together with Katerina Iliopoulou
a multimedia, recite/performance
nov.12.2014 @ romantzo, athens
sound desigh and video

the future according to heidegger
a sculpture
@the exibition, the minimum structure
romantzo, athens nov. 04-16, 2014

anaximandros in foukousima by zissis kotionis,
@ Benaki Museum athens 2014 oct.2-nov. 11
video and sound installation

rebuilding dialectics
september – november 2013
@4th Athens Biennale: AGORA
yiannis isidorou&yiannis grigoriadis
rebuilding dialectics presented by SDV

My Father’s apraxia my mother’s agnosia
installation
Action Field Codra,  Thessaloniki September 2013

[φρμκ]1
first issue may 2013
annual magazine on poetry and art
editing and art direction
[gr]

2013,Violence and Legality
The white house biennial- exercises on democracy
@ opencase 303 athens

From the 1st of June until the 10th of July.

2013, Violence and Legality
platform project@ArtAthina
Athens May 16-19

2013, The Dam
Tehnopolis Gazi “By-Products”
Athens Jan.27- Feb.24

2013 Public Bureau’s Rebuilding Dialectics
[COMPLETED]
SalonDeVortex[@cheapArt]
Athens, Jan. 24 Feb.18

2013 Urbanism For Dummies
SalonDeVortex@cheapArt
January to November 2013

2012 Public Bureau’s Rebuilding Dialectics
The Symptom Project
IIn The limits of togetherness
Amfissa, 6-21 October
@ the old hospital

2011 Onassis Cultural Centre
December 15-18, 2011
Music and Sound Design
for action 21 mneme

by Prosxima Dance Co.

2011 In Vino Veritas
Archaeological Park of Plato’s Academy
documentation and sound design
for an interactive installation
by Phoebe Giannisi and Zisis Kotionis
Athens Greece

2011 Moferism, a synopsis
a collaboration with Yiannis Grigoriadis
3-13 Sep. Action Field Kodra 2011
Contemporary Art In Kalamaria
Thesaoniki Greece

2011 The Ark: Old seeds for new cultures/Athens
March/30 – May/22, Benaki Museum, Pireos str.
the Greek entry in the 12th International
Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Biennale

2011 curating the Vaggelis Artemis’
THE BOX @Salon De Vortex
ATHENS
Apr.14- May.14

2011 Mofferism, a first assesment
a collaboration with Yiannis Grigoriadis
Jan.20- Feb20
Salon De Vortex , Athens

2010 Impakt Festival | Matrix City
13-17 October | Utrecht
“Intothepill” 7ATHENS24 21min. DVideo

2010, Il Consigliere
SYMPTOMATIC GREECE: art and politics after crisis
curated by Sotirios Bahtsetzis, Vassiljev’s Theatre, Moscow.
Within the scope of “Second Moscow Dictionary of War”

2010 12th International Architecture Exhibition Venice Biennial.
The Ark: Old seeds for new cultures
Video and Sound Installation for
Greek pavilion

2010 Athens & Epidaurus Festival
Music and Sound Design for
[action] 8
Singularity ,by
Prosxima Dance Company

2010 European Media Art Festival, Osnabrueck Germany
“Intothepill” 7ATHENS24 21min. DVideo

2010 Uqbar project , Schwedenstr 16 Berlin
Intothepill collection
Greek Contemporary Video, February 26-April 9

2009 NEW EUROPE FESTIVAL Prague
Music and Sound Design for
[Action] V – Tous Les Deux, by
Prosxima Dance Company

Intothepill, DIRECT DEMOCRACY YES OR NO? an instalation
2009 Athens School Of Fine Art, for the exhibition “In dire(ct) democracy”–
8 artistic approaches.

“Intothepill” 7ATHENS24 21min. DVideo
2009,National Museum of Contemporary Art
Expanded Ecologies. Perspectives in a Time of Emergency, Athens

Intothepill Vol.1
2009, Sync Festival, Athens
Greek Contemporary Video Art

Intothepill” It sound Like a Capital 20min DVideo
2008,State Museum of Contemporary Art.
Visual Arts In Greece 3, Thessaloniki,

Athens by sound
2008, 11th International Architecture Exhibition Venice Biennial.
“Intothepill” 26 short videos for the installation of
Greek pavilion

Main Details
2008 @ Kafeneon Athens
performance
in collaboration with Yiannis Grigoriadis

Where is Pablo Frank 3min.DVideo
2008. Sep.Vilka Artforum, Thessaloniki.
Digital Romance, Aris Stoidis collection,

Ecstatic segment 6 min. DVideo
-2008, VIDEOHOLICA 08/
International Biennial August in Art, Varna.
-2008,4th International dance film festival
Japan-Yokohama.
-2008, tNapoli Teatro Festival Italia
Il Coreografo Elettronico Napoli/Italy.

Cravanism 2min. DVideo
2008, “20th Century on video project ”
Trianon cinema, Athens.

Karaoke poetry bar by intothepill.net,
2007, ‘417’ project space,
Parallel project of the 1st Athens Biennial Destroy Athens.

Intothepill.net at her(his)tory
Intothepill collection
2007, Museum of cycladic art , Athens.

2007/2006, Strange screen
Video Art Festival, Thessaloniki.

2006, Intothepill
CLIPS Galerie Nord, Berlin.

2006, Intothepill Soundrugs
Dr. Sorovits Lab, Athens.

2006, Intothepill
E31 Gallery, Athens

2003 womb arts collective
web based platform for arts

2001 happyfew>> dangerfew
a site dedicated to art, philosophy and everything in between

© Yiannis Isidorou_all works and materials, 1991–end